The newly discovered planet is 1.6 times the size of Jupiter<\/a> and called Gaia23bra b. It was initially identified by astronomers in 2023 when it was picked up by the European Space Agency’s now-retired Gaia Telescope.\u00a0<\/p>\n Researchers later looked back through archived TESS data and realized TESS had caught it too, despite it being 150 light-years outside TESS’ typical search radius, NASA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n JULY SKYWATCHING GUIDE: FROM PLANETARY CONJUNCTIONS TO CLOSE ENCOUNTERS IN SPACE<\/a><\/p>\n Typically, TESS finds star-hugging transitioning planets. So a discovery like this is very rare for TESS because of Gaia23bra b’s size and orbital distance from its host star, NASA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n This artist\u2019s concept visualizes Gaia23bra b, the first microlensing planet orbiting a distant star found by NASA\u2019s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). This super-Jupiter orbits an orange dwarf star at a distance similar to Jupiter\u2019s distance from the Sun.<\/p>\n (NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center \/ NASA)<\/p>\n “Gaia\u2019s observations were too sparse to pick up on the planet,” said Mallory Harris, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico, who led a study about TESS’ discovery of the planet. “The TESS spacecraft happened to be monitoring the same area of the sky during the event, and its denser time coverage showed extra features in the light curve caused by a planet.”<\/p>\n The study, published July 1 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters<\/a>, revealed that Gaia23bra b orbits an orange dwarf star that\u2019s about 80% of the Sun\u2019s<\/a> mass and is nearly 40,000 light-years away from Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n VIBRANT DISCOVERY: UNIQUE, SALTY CLOUDS FOUND ON ICONIC ‘PINK PLANET’<\/a><\/p>\n The payload fairing for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is moved inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Inside the facility<\/p>\n (NASA)<\/p>\n “When TESS launched, no one expected it to ever be capable of finding this kind of planet,” said Diana Dragomir, a professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and co-author of the paper describing the results. “The discovery implies that there are probably other so-called microlensing planets hiding in TESS\u2019s data that we hadn\u2019t previously thought to look for.”<\/p>\n Out of more than 6,000 known exoplanets, about three-fourths were discovered using the transit method, TESS\u2019s typical planet-hunting technique, NASA said.\u00a0<\/p>\n SCIENTISTS DISCOVER NEW METHOD OF DEFENSE AGAINST SOLAR STORMS TO HELP PROTECT EARTH<\/a><\/p>\n This graphic highlights the search areas of three planet-hunting missions: NASA\u2019s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the retired Kepler Space Telescope, and NASA\u2019s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). While TESS discovers transiting planets within a 150-light-year radius of Earth, it recently detected a planet about 40,000 light-years away (marked by the star symbol) via another method, called microlensing.<\/p>\n (NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center \/ NASA)<\/p>\n “Astronomers monitor hordes of stars, watching for ones that periodically dim as orbiting planets cross in front of them \u2014 an event called a transit,” the space agency said.\u00a0<\/p>\n NASA said microlensing has revealed less than 5% of known exoplanets.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/brown-superjupiter-d2-1-scaled.jpg\")
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